


Gamers Merlin and Arthur

by balloongal247



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Pendragon Has Magic (Merlin), But everyone else has to, But without the millennium of angst, Fix-It, Goddess trying to parent Arthur, I made child Arthur live in fear of his father, Inspired by the gamer webcomic, More tags than story, SI goddess, because someone had to, elements of time travel fix it, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29584584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balloongal247/pseuds/balloongal247
Summary: An idea I have for a Gamer Merlin fic, which mutated to include gamer Arthur
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 3





	1. Notes on this universe

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where I'm going with this. I'll probably write more of the story in the tags than in the story. Don't expect coherency. If anyone would like to take this idea and write a real story from it, I'd love to read it!   
> Really, I'd much rather read this than write it.

Gamer system, but instead of seeing "game windows" the knowledge is just in their heads like druid telepathy. ( I'm going on the premise that in the gamer, the screen interaction is just how jihan's brain handles the information.)  
Drops from battles ( doesn't require kills, as seen when jihan is fighting actual people), quest rewards,etc go directly into inventory. Hunting counts too.   
Inventory and suspicious items from it cannot be used in front of others. Suspicious items return directly to inventory if someone walks in.  
The goddess wants this to help her boys have a better life than they might otherwise, not get them exposed for sorcery.  
Item drops are books and other things the boys need to be successful, including books that were burned in the purge or books that might not exist for centuries (medical books). The goddess exists outside of time and space. Herbs and apothecary stuff too, plus money.   
The passing of (basic) dragonlord knowledge and thus power upon death to oldest sons was originally a failsafe in case of tragedy. However, over time it came to be the only way. However any dragonkin could learn the dragonlord skills. (fanon time travel Merlin still a dragonlord before Balinor dies bc he knows he is)   
Knight training involves wearing weighted vests all the time, to build stamina for armor and training with weighted weapons.  
Merlin is about 3yrs younger than Arthur.   
Books don't disappear. There's no mass production of books, and the goddess wants to increase and restore knowledge not destroy it. Learning is easier for the boys though.

Earlier notes, some things I've completely reimagined, others were hyperfixation details. 

Starts a couple months pre-canon, on Merlin’s 17th birthday  
Powers gifted by the ThreeFold Goddess, maybe a dream talking to her explaining? At least a little? At first, or when he wishes hard enough for answers to questions? Both?  
So Merlin is 3-3.5yr younger than Arthur.  
Morgana is older than Arthur, but not much. 1 year?  
His title is Emrys rather than The Gamer, Immortal Spirit and Body instead of Gamer’s  
Int&Wis are still magic determining stats  
Can’t die, because he’s Emrys which means Immortal. Losing HP will just knock him out, maybe appear dead, before he revives (ie the flower poison)  
No save game or anything, because it is the “real” world, not actually a game. Ergo, not save based exploits of the game. No tutorial or manual, or anything beyond a dream conversation with a goddess, though any “screens” he sees, he could get descriptions of like what the stats mean. It’s really Merlin’s life, everyone else in the world is just as real as Merlin, he won’t be any more immoral than canon Merlin. Maybe less, because he’ll be more intelligent and wise and won’t be backed into decisions because he feels he has no other choice.

When he kills/defeats something, he’ll get bonus loot (whatever a normal person wouldn’t get, ie not the body) directly into inventory, along with a popup thereof, which is how he’ll learn about inventory?  
Killing animals counts. May not have IDs, just Merlin canon enemies. Pre-canon, farm boy stuff like maybe he’ll have to go kill a chicken for dinner.  
Not sure what extras he’ll get. Obviously something he’ll need later, I guess money, but what items. Merlin never got into magic that would require tools or animal parts. Maybe herbs or something, but why would he get that from animals? I guess just as much as Jihan gets healing potions or ingredients for them, Merlin would get apothecary stuff…. 

Currency is Gold,Silver,Copper pieces. G/S/C. 10C = 1S. 70S = 1G Will later figure out an economy of what things cost, I guess? Probably based on Beka Cooper series. In Camelot, day old bread 2 loaves for 1C. Fresh bread 1C/loaf. Flagon of Ale 1-3C, Mead 2-4C As one of the highest tiers of servant, Prince’s manservant, he makes 1G/month? 1G/week?

Like early Gamer, will have “quests” initiating when someone asks him to do something  
Maybe the quests Pass/fail results will clue him into how bad Kilgharrah and Gaius’s “help” can go, to encourage him to make the right choices.

Maybe Morgana will be the first to join his party. Maybe by him saying he wishes he could share it with her, after telling her the truth when presented with opportunity. Then pop-up for Would you like to invite her to party. Though Arthur may either learn of his magic super early or be some other kind of party system that does not tell Arthur about things he shouldn’t know but does give Merlin credit for enemies defeated together.

Won’t have to say specific keywords to get specific screens. Just want it. Thinking works, doesn’t need to be verbal, because of the whole threat-of-execution thing. Don’t want to go around saying weird things.

Skill books do not disappear, because books are not mass produced then, and are too valuable to just poof. But, he will have some kind of accelerated learning of skills from books, so that he has the knowledge needed when needed. Or, he’ll get a loot drop for creating pocket dimensions and will learn to combine his time skills (which he’ll get a skill for when he saves Gaius, if not before) to create time modified pocket dimensions (IDs) to have time to study. In which case, I guess maybe he could do monster IDs to grind.. Or both? Though if the Immortal skills let him not need sleep (like The Gamer) then that gives a lot of time. I don’t want to go too far. Speaking of sleep, Gamer canon of sleep restores HP & MP? And that it’s skills he’ll learn (meditation, massage) that will make him not need sleep so much? And he’ll still just be exhausted sometimes. Sometimes that’s just more than mind and body. But not *needing* sleep will be so helpful, which is the point of this idea. To give him the little boost he needs to not ruin everything like canon did. Hmm, his time manipulation skills could give localized time differentials anyway, say on his room at night to practice/read.  
Will find secret section of the library with more magic knowledge to learn, *borrow* a couple at a time to learn needed info. No librarian as dedicated to his books as Geoffrey would let an entire category of knowledge be lost because one king is throwing a tantrum. He’s got a secret stash somewhere. Maybe that’s part of why he doesn’t like people wandering around the library.  
Maybe a separate screen instead of each spell being a skill, of spells learned. Searchable?

Actually, ability to create pocket dimensions could help combine with fanfic ideas of hidden magic-safe realm. Problem is that it is hard to run a country while being a manservant in a different country. Hmm…. If I want him to run country, would probably go with restoring Forbidden lands idea, rather than pocket dimension idea.

Would Morgana’s overhead text read Morgana Lefay or Morgana Pendragon? Hmmm….. I guess her acknowledged and “chosen” name would be Lefay. But maybe Observe leveled up a bit would say daughter of Uther? Or something when including her in party? Would observing Morgause say sister of Morgana, since that is something Morgause knows about herself?

Allying magic users instead of having to kill them all off? Maybe possible, if get Arthur (and Morgana) on side early enough. And possible joined with Forbidden Lands restoration?

What to do about Uther? I hate him, and would like him to die. But Arthur does love him, and I do like how Complementarity handles him. But, how to get Merlin to the point where he’d shunt Uther aside like that? Also, if I go like that, would the festering grief/curses and stuff be something he could see with observe, and maybe heal with knowledge found in aforementioned forbidden book stash?

I think skills are broader, like a category of knowledge (history, math, reading, writing (those two increase speed)) not like each specific spell, since in canon he hardly used the same spell twice, except like breaking tree limbs. But that would probably just be push? Maybe elemental control, one for each element? Animation. Conjuration. Time manipulation. Foraging increases yield and helps identify things to forage? Or just observe would do the identifying, I guess. Tracking, stealth.

Actually, about earlier loot drop skill books.. Could he get loot drops of magic books, which would eventually be helpful in bringing magic back to the land when Arthur becomes King and unites Albion… Canon did state that Uthur destroyed all the magical knowledge that he could, and that he was willing to violate borders in order to hunt down sorcerers. So, even in surrounding countries, there is a lack of information. Maybe his loot drops could magically bring back books that are lost. Maybe also generate knowledge from more modern day science? After all, this is supported by a goddess outside of time, and is based on gaming which does not exist in that time, so why couldn’t it provide information on medical science or building or something. Maybe a way to get somewhat to a Complementarity type society without the time travel?

Arthur gives him some of the more physical skills and training allegedly to mess with him, because he’s worried. Plus all that work he gives would be excellent for strength training and stuff. Carrying around his body weight in armor…

Should he not stumble upon the status screen for a few months so that he has some points built up when he gets to camelot where he has access to magic books and gets more of the early point grinding done manually so that he doesn’t waste points on the early levels when it is easier to do manually, so that they have more impact later? Or at least have him put them on Int/Wis as the magic contributing factors, which would help with the overall goal of this making him not such a naive kid led down the wrong path by the “wise elders”. And, those are harder to just grind than carrying heavy stuff around the castle all day, like Arthur will make him do anyway.

I feel like most of the money and items he gets he would use to help other people. He probably sends some of his salary home for his mom, but there wouldn’t be much to buy in a village as small as Ealdor. Some of the gold will help bring supplies into the village, but within the village there’s not much to do. He has room and board from Gaius and from stealing from Arthur’s trays, and maybe a meal or two a day as Manservant.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me talking about how I thought about this.  
> No, I'm not ever going to order my thoughts well enough to actually write a coherent story. I would love it if one of you did!

At first I was just going to just do a Gamer Merlin fic, because I wanted him to have a way to develop skills and a system to tell him when someone is on their BS. Because most of his issues in canon were because he didn't have enough confidence in himself and his skills so he followed the supremely biased bad advice from Gaius and Kilgharrah. So I wanted a Merlin who wouldn't put up with that. Then I realized that a Merlin that isn't putting up with them, wouldn't put up with Canon Arthur either. So I needed Arthur to not be the kind of guy who would throw knives at a servant. BUT! I think Arthur was really into this random guy calling him out and standing up to him. It really sets the tone for their relationship. So, I needed a reason a nice Arthur that isn't so careless of other people would still throw knives at a servant.. I also was thinking about how knight training (at least in the Tamora Pierce books I read) includes a lot of methods that would work really well for gamer training (weighted vests and weapons and stuff).. So I decided he should have the gamer magic as well. So that he is actually quantifiably so good that in order to train his knife throwing he actually needs that moving target, but also he's so good that there's very little chance of him missing and hitting the guy.

ALSO, about all Arthur brings to the table in canon is his being the son of a king, and thus theoretically able to take the throne without civil war. But, Uther was a conqueror, not the son of a king, so there wouldn't be huge loyalty to this royal line, since it's just been the one guy whose most memorable policy is genocide. And there were many wars over Arthur becoming king anyway... So a confident and competent Merlin.... Wouldn't need Canon Arthur. Arthur needed more to bring to this partnership. Like, even most King Arthur reincarnated movies, the reason is like a magical threat from the days of Camelot resurfacing... but Merlin deals with all of those. Arthur wasn't even aware of half of them. So now Arthur gets the gamer magic, and it encourages him to learn other magic, because a mage Arthur is cooler than canon Arthur.

Then I thought of the system giving him like self-help books about abusive parents. And the goddess visiting him and parenting him better than anyone else around there is doing. I also thought about the fact that the gamer system would basically be magic, and while Uther *probably* wouldn't kill Arthur for magic... He proves in the show that he definitely will do anything else to control Arthur. Including killing the people around him, locking him in the dungeons, flogging him.... So, Arthur also has to learn the secrecy. The fear of Uther and what he is going around doing to people, the fear that he will turn that harsh gaze on him. And I felt bad that I was raising Arthur to live in fear of his father, but everyone else has to... And I think that will make him a better king. In canon, even when he thought that the genocide was unnecessary, he never really understood the fear that everyone, magic or not, lived in. After all, Uther didn't really care about whether or not someone actually had magic. An accusation was enough to burn. And even associating with someone accused of sorcery could be your death. And that's the kind of fear that is hard to truly understand if you haven't actually lived it.

I also want a conversation somehow, maybe of Arthur complaining about Morgana, and the goddess referring to her as his sister. And saying "whether you share blood or not is irrelevant to the fact that she is your sister".  
Also, my headcanon is that there is not actually a "balance" that takes a life for saving a life. It's a combination of coincidence, not asking the magic for the right thing, and people believing it, so they "choose" the target and just kill people. For example Arthur's birth, Ygraine was infertile, we don't know how, but we do know she was unable to bring a pregnancy to term. They did a spell to make her give birth to a healthy son/child. If pregnancy was dangerous to her, the spell would keep her alive until she could give birth, but once she gave birth, the spell was completed. There was no longer anything holding back the damage from the forced pregnancy. And nobody cast any spells then to heal her, maybe they didn't know any, maybe they were distracted, maybe they thought it was inevitable. Another example is the questing beast episode. Nimue believes that the magic requires a life for a life. So in her spell to heal Arthur, she casts his symptoms onto the sacrifice of her choice. The healing is a fixed thing, she heals him and he's healed. Casting the symptoms is ongoing, for as long as they are suffering the symptoms. So, when Merlin killed her, it ended any ongoing magic, ie the inflicting of the symptoms on his loved ones. It wasn't because she met the sacrificial component that they got better, it was because she was no longer making them unwell. Because they weren't actually bitten, just mimicking it, they were fine once she could no longer inflict it on them. If it were truly a cosmic balance, nobody would have noticed it. With all the people in the world, you think magic is going to bother finding someone you know and care about to keep balance? And, with all the people in the world, there's always someone dying anyway. But, that would be more likely to just manipulate chance then such eye for an eye.


End file.
